Rodney Glen King III (April 2, 1965 – June 17, 2012) was an American construction worker who became nationally known after being beaten by Los Angeles Police Department officers following a high-speed car chase on March 3, 1991. A local witness, George Holliday, videotaped much of it from his balcony, and sent the footage to local news station KTLA. The footage shows five officers surrounding King, several of them striking him repeatedly, while other officers stood by. Part of the footage was aired around the world, inflaming outrage in cities where racial tensions were high, and raising public concern about police treatment of minorities.

Four officers were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and use of excessive force. Three were acquitted of all charges. The jury acquitted the fourth of assault with a deadly weapon, but failed to reach a verdict on the use of excessive force. The jury deadlocked at 8–4 in favor of acquittal at the state level. The acquittals are generally considered to have triggered the 1992 Los Angeles riots, in which 53 people were killed and over 2,000 were injured, ending only when the military was called in.

The acquittals also led to the federal government's obtaining grand jury indictments for violations of King's civil rights. The trial of the four in a federal district court ended on April 16, 1993, with two of the officers being found guilty and subsequently imprisoned. The other two were acquitted again.

In November 1989, King robbed a store in Monterey Park, California. He produced an iron bar he possessed and demanded cash from the Korean store owner. The owner surrendered two hundred dollars but resisted when King tried taking two checks from the register, grabbing King and striking him with an iron bar. King attempted to flee, then struck the storekeeper with a pole found nearby, having dropped the bar he entered the store with. King escaped but was later arrested. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years, then released after serving one year of the sentence.[3]

King had three daughters: one by Carmen Simpson, when he was a teenager, and one by each of his two wives. Both of King's marriages, to Danetta Lyles and Crystal Waters, ended in divorce.[4][5]

On the night of March 3, 1991, King and two passengers, Bryant Allen and Freddie Helms, were driving west on the Foothill Freeway (Interstate 210) in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. Prior to driving on the Foothill Freeway, the three men had spent the night watching a basketball game and drinking at a friend's house in Los Angeles.[6] Five hours after the incident, King's blood-alcohol level was found to be slightly below the legal limit, implying his blood alcohol level may have fallen from 0.19 while he was driving, which is more than twice the legal driving limit in California.[7] At 12:30 am, Officers Tim and Melanie Singer, husband-and-wife members of the California Highway Patrol, noticed King's car speeding on the freeway. The officers pursued King, and the pursuit attained high speeds, while King refused to pull over.[8][9] King would later admit he attempted to outrun the police at dangerously high speeds because a charge of driving under the influence would violate his parole for a previous robbery conviction.[10]

King exited the freeway and the pursuit continued through residential surface streets, at speeds ranging from 55 to 80 miles per hour.[11][12] By this point, several police cars and a police helicopter had joined the pursuit. After approximately eight miles, officers cornered King in his car at the corner of Foothill Boulevard and Osborne Street (34°16′34″N118°22′42″W﻿ / ﻿34.276114°N 118.378239°W﻿ / 34.276114; -118.378239). The first five LAPD officers to arrive at the scene were Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno, and Rolando Solano.

Officer Tim Singer ordered King and his two passengers to exit the vehicle and lie face down on the ground. Bryant Allen was manhandled, kicked, stomped, taunted and threatened.[13] Freddie Helms was hit in the head while lying on the ground. His bloody baseball cap was turned over to police. Helms was treated for a laceration on the top of his head.[14] King remained in the car. When he finally did emerge, he acted bizarrely, giggling, patting the ground, and waving to the police helicopter overhead.[12] King then grabbed his buttocks which Officer Melanie Singer took to mean King reaching for a weapon.[15] King was later found to be unarmed. She drew her pistol and pointed it at King, ordering him to lie on the ground. Singer approached, gun drawn, preparing to effect an arrest.

At that point LAPD Sergeant Stacey Koon, the ranking officer at the scene, told Singer that LAPD was taking tactical command of the situation. He ordered all officers to holster their weapons.[citation needed] LAPD officers are taught not to approach a suspect with a gun drawn, as there is a risk that a suspect may gain control of it if an officer gets too close.[16] Koon then ordered the four other LAPD officers at the scene—Briseno, Powell, Solano, and Wind—to subdue and handcuff King using a technique called a "swarm." This involves multiple officers grabbing a suspect with empty hands, in order to quickly overcome potential resistance. As four officers attempted to restrain King, King resisted, standing to remove Officers Powell and Briseno from his back. The officers later testified that they believed King was under the influence of the dissociative drug phencyclidine (PCP),[17] although King's toxicology tested negative for the drug.[18]

After King was struck by Koon's Taser the second time is the approximate start of the George Holliday videotape of the incident. In the tape, King is seen on the ground. He rises and rushes toward Powell and what was argued in court as either to attack Powell or to flee but regardless King and Powell both collided in the rush.[19] Taser wire can be seen on King's body. Officer Powell strikes King with his baton, and King is knocked to the ground.[20] Powell strikes King several more times with his baton. Briseno moves in, attempting to stop Powell from striking again, and Powell stands back. Koon reportedly said, "That's enough." King then rises again, to his knees; Powell and Wind are then seen hitting King with their batons.[21]

Koon acknowledged ordering the continued use of batons, directing Powell and Wind to strike King with "power strokes." According to Koon, Powell and Wind used "bursts of power strokes, then backed off." In the videotape, King continues to try to stand again. Koon orders the officers to "hit his joints, hit the wrists, hit his elbows, hit his knees, hit his ankles."[21] Officers Wind, Briseno, and Powell attempted numerous baton strikes on King resulting in some misses but with 33 blows hitting King, plus six kicks. The officers again "swarm" King but this time a total of eight officers are involved in the swarm. King is then placed in handcuffs and cordcuffs, restraining his arms and legs. King is dragged on his abdomen to the side of the road to await the arrival of emergency medical rescue.[21]

George Holliday's videotape of the incident was shot from his apartment near the intersection of Foothill Blvd and Osborne St. in Lake View Terrace. Two days later Holliday contacted the police about his videotape of the incident, who ignored him.[22] He then went to KTLA television with his videotape, although the station edited out ten seconds of the video, before the image was in focus, that showed an extremely blurry shot of King charging at the officers; the cut footage would later be cited by members of the jury as essential to the acquittal of the officers.[23] The footage as a whole became an instant media sensation. Portions of it were aired numerous times, and it "turned what would otherwise have been a violent, but soon forgotten, encounter between the Los Angeles police and an uncooperative suspect into one of the most widely watched and discussed incidents of its kind."[24]

The Holliday video of the Rodney King arrest is a fairly early example of modern sousveillance, wherein private citizens, assisted by increasingly sophisticated, affordable video equipment, record significant, sometimes historical events. Several "copwatch" organizations subsequently appeared throughout the United States to safeguard against police abuse, including an umbrella group, October 22 Coalition to Stop Police Brutality.[25]

King was taken to Pacifica Hospital after his arrest, where he was shown to have suffered a fractured facial bone, a broken right ankle, and multiple bruises and lacerations.[26] In a negligence claim filed with the city, King alleged he had suffered "11 skull fractures, permanent brain damage, broken [bones and teeth], kidney damage [and] emotional and physical trauma".[27] Blood and urine samples taken from King five hours after his arrest showed that he would have been intoxicated under California law at the time of his arrest. The tests also showed traces of marijuana (26 ng/ml).[27] Pacifica Hospital nurses reported that the officers who accompanied King (including Wind) openly joked and bragged about the number of times King had been hit.[28] Officers also obtained King's identification from his clothes pockets at that time. King sued the city and a jury awarded him $3.8 million as well as $1.7 million in attorney's fees.[29] Charges against King for driving while intoxicated and evading arrest were never pursued. District Attorney Ira Reiner felt there was insufficient evidence for prosecution[26] and successor Gil Garcetti felt that too much time had passed to charge King with evading arrest while also mentioning that the statute of limitations on drunk driving had passed.[30]

The Los Angeles district attorney charged officers Koon, Powell, Briseno and Wind with use of excessive force. Sergeant Koon, while he did not strike King, only having deployed the Taser was, as the supervisory officer at the scene, charged with "willfully permitting and failing to take action to stop the unlawful assault".

Though few people at first considered race an important factor in the case, including Rodney King's attorney, Steven Lerman, the sensitizing effect of the Holliday videotape was at the time stirring deep resentment in Los Angeles, as well as other major cities in the United States. The officers' jury consisted of Ventura County residents: ten white; one Latino; one Asian. Lead prosecutor Terry White was African American. On April 29, 1992, the jury acquitted three of the officers, but could not agree on one of the charges against Powell.[6]

Los Angeles MayorTom Bradley said, "The jury's verdict will not blind us to what we saw on that videotape. The men who beat Rodney King do not deserve to wear the uniform of the LAPD."[31]PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush said, "Viewed from outside the trial, it was hard to understand how the verdict could possibly square with the video. Those civil rights leaders with whom I met were stunned. And so was I and so was Barbara and so were my kids."[32]

After the acquittals and the riots, the United States Department of Justice sought indictments for violations of King's civil rights. "On May 7, federal prosecutors began presenting evidence to a Los Angeles [federal] grand jury. On August 4, the grand jury returned indictments against the three officers for '...willfully and intentionally using unreasonable force...' and against Sergeant Koon for '...willfully permitting and failing to take action to stop the unlawful assault...' on King." Based on these indictments a trial of the four officers in the United States District Court for the Central District of California began on February 25, 1993.[34] The federal trial focused more on the incident. On March 9 of the 1993 trial, King took the witness stand and described to the jury the events as he remembered them.[35] The jury found Officer Laurence Powell and Sergeant Stacey Koon guilty, and they were subsequently sentenced to 32 months in prison, while Timothy Wind and Theodore Briseno were acquitted of all charges.[6]

During the three-hour sentencing hearing, the Federal trial judge, John Davies, accepted much of the defense version of the beating. He strongly criticized King, who he said provoked the officers' initial actions. Judge Davies stated that only the final six or so baton blows by Powell were unlawful. The first 55 seconds of the videotaped portion of the incident, during which the vast majority of the blows were delivered, was within the law because the officers were attempting to subdue a suspect who was resisting efforts to take him into custody.

Davies found that King's provocative behavior began with his "remarkable consumption of alcoholic beverage" and continued through a high-speed chase, refusal to submit to police orders and an aggressive charge toward Powell. Davies made several findings in support of the officers' version of events. He concluded that Officer Powell never intentionally struck King in the head, and "Powell's baton blow that broke King's leg was not illegal because King was still resisting and rolling around on the ground, and breaking bones in resistant suspects is permissible under police policy."

Mitigation cited by the judge in determining the length of the prison sentence included the suffering the officers had undergone because of the extensive publicity their case had received, heavy legal bills that were still unpaid, the impending loss of their careers as police officers, their higher risks of abuse while in prison and their having already been subjected to two trials. The judge acknowledged that having two such trials did not legally constitute double jeopardy, but nonetheless it "raised the specter of unfairness."

Both Laurence Powell and Stacey Koon appealed their sentences, first to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, followed by an appeal to The Supreme Court of the United States, which decided the case (518 U.S. 81) on June 13, 1996, with Justice Kennedy delivering the opinion of the Court.[9][36]

King with fiancée Cynthia Kelly in April 2012, two months before his death. Kelly was one of the jurors in King's civil suit against the city of Los Angeles when he was awarded $3.8 million.

King successfully sued the city of Los Angeles in a federal civil rights case. The court jury awarded King $3.8 million and awarded King's attorneys an additional $1.7 million in statutory attorney’s fees. King's lawyer, Stephen Lerman, distributed the attorney’s fees to the lawyers who worked on King's behalf. King then sued Lerman for legal malpractice, claiming he was entitled to those attorney’s fees instead of his lawyers. Lerman successfully defended himself in the action, having the case dismissed on summary judgment, which was affirmed on appeal.[citation needed]

King continued to get into trouble after the 1991 incident. On August 21, 1993, he crashed his car into a block wall in downtown Los Angeles.[37] He was convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol, fined, entered an alcohol rehabilitation program and was placed on probation. In July 1995, he was arrested by Alhambra police after hitting his wife with his car and knocking her to the ground. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail after being convicted of hit and run.[38] King invested a portion of his settlement in a record label, Straight Alta-Pazz Records, which went under.[39] On August 27, 2003, King was arrested again for speeding and running a red light while under the influence of alcohol. He failed to yield to police officers and slammed his vehicle into a house, breaking his pelvis.[40] On November 29, 2007, while riding home on his bicycle, King was shot in the face, arms, and back with pellets from a shotgun. He reported that the attackers were a man and a woman who demanded his bicycle and shot him when he rode away.[38] Police described the wounds as looking like they came from birdshot.[citation needed]

During his time on Celebrity Rehab and Sober House, King worked on his addiction and on the lingering trauma of the beating. He and Pinsky physically retraced King's path from the night of his beating, eventually reaching the spot where it happened, the site of the Children's Museum of Los Angeles.[43]

In 2009, King and other Celebrity Rehab alumni appeared as panel speakers to a new group of addicts at the Pasadena Recovery Center, marking 11 months of sobriety for him. His appearance was aired in the third season episode "Triggers".[46]

On September 9, 2010, it was confirmed that King was going to marry Cynthia Kelley, who had been a juror in the civil suit he brought against the City of Los Angeles.[1]

On March 3, 2011, the 20th anniversary of the beating, the LAPD stopped King for driving erratically and issued him a citation for driving with an expired license.[47][48][49] This arrest led to his February 2012 misdemeanor conviction for reckless driving.[50]

The BBC quoted King commenting on his legacy. "Some people feel like I'm some kind of hero. Others hate me. They say I deserved it. Other people, I can hear them mocking me for when I called for an end to the destruction, like I'm a fool for believing in peace."[51]

On June 17, 2012, King's fiancée Cynthia Kelly found him lying at the bottom of his swimming pool.[52][53] Police in Rialto received a 911 call from Kelly at about 5:25 a.m. (PDT).[54][55] Responding officers found King at the bottom of the pool, removed him, and attempted to revive him. He was transferred by ambulance to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, California and was pronounced dead at the hospital at 6:11 a.m. (PDT) The Rialto Police Department began a standard drowning investigation and stated there did not appear to be any foul play. On August 23, 2012, King's autopsy results were released, stating he died of accidental drowning, and alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, and PCP found in his system were contributing factors. "The effects of the drugs and alcohol, combined with the subject's heart condition, probably precipitated a cardiac arrhythmia and the subject, thus incapacitated, was unable to save himself and drowned".[56]